Steven Travis was out on a pond when his boat started taking on water. Kellie Barr Foster, who was rock climbing nearby, heard Travis yelling for help and risked her own life by jumping in to get him.

Travis, an experienced fisherman, was out using a float tube in the middle of Stone House Pond when suddenly he heard something.

“I started hearing some whistle coming from my float tube and I said, ‘What is that?’” Travis said.

His tube was losing air and he immediately started paddling toward the shore.

“From where I was fishing, maybe a good third of the way out in the middle, and it just went boom, just like that, and I was in the water down,” Travis said.

His waders filled with water and he was tangled in his gear. He said he quickly became exhausted.

“I held on for everything I had,” Travis said. “I’m not exaggerating. I was that tired and if I had taken a dunk, I don’t know if I would have gotten back up.”

Travis said he feared he was the only person out on the pond and he prepared for the worst. He said what happened next was nothing short of a miracle.

Foster swam up to him to pull him to shore.

“I was able to hold his head up and swim back with him and all his equipment to my phone and call 911,” Foster said.

A rescue crew from the Barrington Fire Department arrived within minutes and checked Travis out.

“I don’t think there’s anybody that doesn’t believe that had she not been here, we would have been coming out of here for a much different circumstance,” Fire Chief Rick Walker said. “It would have been a recovery not a rescue.”